


Parallax

by elements



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Dimension Travel, M/M, Master of Death Harry Potter, Summoned Hero
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:27:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27613457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elements/pseuds/elements
Summary: Lord Voldemort’s research on the Elder Wand takes him down a different path. He learns of the Hallows and summons the Master of Death to take their powers and win the war in one fell swoop.Unfortunately, the Master of Death ends up being incredibly stubborn and uncooperative. They also claim to be Harry Potter from a different universe.In hindsight, perhaps his plan was flawed.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle | Voldemort, Harry Potter/Voldemort
Comments: 102
Kudos: 620
Collections: Harry Potter, Harry Potter Fanfiction Favorites, Harrymort/Tomarry Recs for the Soul





	1. Draco Malfoy and the Parameters of Arcane Dark Rituals

If Draco Malfoy had to guess where it had all gone wrong, he’d think back to that summer night he entered his library and saw Lord Voldemort reading a children’s story.

Not just reading, in fact… he was downright _obsessing_ over it, red eyes tracking every word while he took notes on a scroll of parchment already nearing three feet. His other hand had a tight grasp over _The Tales of Beedle the Bard_ , claw-like fingernails about to dig a hole through the binding. The snake was absent but his wand lay on the table next to his notes, though Draco knew the Dark Lord didn’t need it to spell him dead.

Hardly daring to breathe, Draco backed away step by trembling step, slow as possible so as not to grab the Dark Lord’s attention. When he was a safe distance from the doors of the library, he turned around and walked so quickly to the staircase that a breeze picked up, cooling the droplets of nervous sweat that had gathered on his forehead. He had to remind himself to breathe the whole way up to his room and, finally as safe as he could be with a crazed murderer living in his manor, fell to his knees and groaned.

Up until then, Draco had assumed Lord Voldemort conducted all of his research (whatever that might consist of — reading, killing sprees, potion brewing, and ritual sacrifice, probably…) in the wing of the manor he’d monopolized. Could he not have had the house elves or a Death Eater grab him the books he needed? That would’ve been much kinder to Draco’s mental state, for one.

Could he even call that research, though? His mind wouldn’t allow him to entertain the notion of the Dark Lord reading recreationally, but what was so worthwhile to him about _The Wizard and the Hopping Pot,_ or _Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump?_ And to write feet of parchment on these children’s stories…

Fear still overpowered Draco’s curiosity as he hoped beyond hope that the Dark Lord had truly failed to notice his presence. The man simply _terrified_ him. Every time he was unfortunate enough to make direct eye contact, Draco practically withered. Nagini was the only creature nearly as frightening, and Draco felt downright suffocated every time he remembered that he was literally cohabitating with the two.

The sight of the Dark Lord casually researching in his library like he owned the place — and at this point, he bloody well did — was so disquieting, Draco was genuinely afraid to wander around his own home for the next few weeks. He avoided the library in particular like there was a curse placed on it and awaited the start of his seventh year with no small amount of eagerness.

Just when Draco was getting over the ordeal, looking around corners in the family wings a little less religiously and allowing himself to breathe whenever he passed by an open doorway, his Dark Mark burned and he knew it was time to be in Voldemort’s presence again. To his relief, he was not the only one summoned; to his despair, his mother was part of the group as well, and he knew her unmarked self had likely been personally willed to the gathering. She appeared quite calm, but Draco’s anxiety returned tenfold.

“Take a seat, my friends,” Voldemort said from the head of the table in their drawing room, the snake looping itself around his chair. “And our most gracious hosts…” Draco gulped as the attention fell directly onto him and his parents for a moment.

His quiet, battered father had drawn the Dark Lord’s ire what felt like so long ago, but it showed no signs of letting up. Draco and Narcissa were always caught in the crossfire as well, pawns to the Dark Lord’s new favorite pastime of terrorizing Lucius. Thankfully, he said no more to them and allowed the group to take their places at the table.

Severus and Bellatrix took the seats next to the Dark Lord, as always. It was a smaller crowd today, though, so Draco could not shrink himself near the other end of the table. Only his aunt and father separated him from Voldemort. Rabastan and Rodolphus sat across from Draco, and his mother was to his side, a perfectly manicured hand on his shoulder to steady Draco as she doubtlessly knew his nerves must be overwhelming him. He leaned into the touch gratefully.

It was an odd table of seven followers. Draco did not understand why him and his parents were included, as far out of favor as Lucius had fallen… Bellatrix seemed to be thinking the same as she sneered at his father, who was choosing to stare with great interest at the table. Lucius, along with everyone else, was brought to attention when the Dark Lord began to speak once more.

“As we are all residents of this Manor… with the exception of Severus, whose expertise seemed fitting for the task…. I felt it only right that we be together for an occasion such as today’s,” Voldemort said, leaving Draco at a loss. What occasion? Had he forgotten something?

“What occasion, my Lord?” Bellatrix echoed Draco’s thoughts for him when Voldemort ran his finger down Nagini’s scales rather than continue speaking. If he was trying to build suspense, it was working.

“We will be welcoming a new guest,” Voldemort answered cryptically. Draco winced as his mother’s nails dug into his shoulder. He knew their _current_ number of houseguests made her unhappy enough, and guessed that she had received no warning about this. “Though entity may be the more apt descriptor… They are dark, dangerous, and their power is just _waiting_ to be harnessed. With them, we may have the ability to more quickly crush all forms of resistance… and _Potter_ … so I expect you all to be on your best behavior.”

Everyone exchanged alarmed glances, unsure what to expect. Bellatrix alone seemed excited, worrying her bottom lip in between her teeth as her eyes gravitated back to the Dark Lord. He did not spare a glance at her, though. Instead, Voldemort fixated on _him_ and Draco’s heart seemed to fall into his stomach. This was the first encounter they’d had since the library, and Draco thought with despair that he was done for…

“Tell me, Draco… Have you heard of _The Tales of Beedle the Bard?”_

He couldn’t move. Draco wanted nothing more than to sprint away, but he couldn’t move. Every part of his body grew cold and numb at the same time, and his head felt faint. He realized a long moment later that he could quite literally hear his own pulse, it was racing so fast. Its loud thumps brought him back to reality as he remembered that, near death or not, he had a question to answer.

“Yes, my Lord,” Draco said quietly, shaking slightly as he tried to brace himself for the Cruciatus.

“Of course — and I imagine you all have as well,” Voldemort gestured to the others surrounding him with a flippant wave of his hand, still looking at Draco. He felt like he might be sick. “What is your favorite of the Bard’s stories?”

Draco opened his mouth, confused. His favorite story? He supposed if he had to choose, from what he remembered of his mother’s nighttime storytelling when he was a young child… _“The Tale of the Three Brothers,_ my Lord.”

Draco jumped as Voldemort let out a laugh, high and cold and echoing all around them. He felt that the sound might drive him mad. “Oh, Draco! Don’t you see? This is a sign!”

Draco stared blankly, failing to grasp just why he wasn’t in extreme pain right now, until his father used his cane to jab at his foot. “Pardon me, my Lord, but I’m not sure what you mean.”

The jovial smirk dropped from Voldemort’s face just as quickly as it had come, and he steepled his fingers together to level them all a serious gaze. Bellatrix was the only one who leaned in, enraptured as ever. “I am sure we all know Draco’s favorite tale so I will not go over the minutia, but it is of great import. It’s most vital that you understand this…. Beedle the Bard was a man who took the truth and sold it as fiction. This has gone over nearly everyone’s heads… but nothing escapes Lord Voldemort.”

Nothing and no one, Draco thought traitorously, bewildered at the current topic of discussion. It seemed that the Dark Lord actually hadn’t noticed his interruption in the library because he was just _that invested_ in a book of children’s stories, to the point of convincing himself they were real. He watched Voldemort’s hands rather than meet his eyes, in such a state of surprise that he didn’t trust himself to properly occlude his mind and pretend to be taking this seriously.

“In this particular story, a man stops three brothers and gives them each an artifact from Death. One, a cloak of invisibility that will never fail to hide what is beneath it. The other, a stone that can call people back from the beyond. And the last…” Voldemort trailed off, lifting his wand into the air. It was new, Draco realized.

“The Elder Wand,” Bellatrix finished for him, childish wonder dripping from every syllable she spoke. Her simpering would never fail to nauseate Draco.

“Yes, Bella, the Elder Wand. Said to be the most powerful wand of all, it would give its master strength beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. I have to thank you again, Severus, for compensating for Draco’s weaknesses this spring. Last week, I broke into Albus Dumbledore’s tomb and took the Elder Wand from his cold, dead hand.”

Everyone gaped at this revelation, but Draco just felt shattered once more at the reminder of his old Headmaster’s death. He felt as though he’d always be haunted by the sight of the life leaving Dumbledore’s eyes, so soon after he offered the Malfoy family a chance and safe refuge. How differently things could have gone…

“I am pleased it has found a most deserving master, my Lord,” Severus bowed his head humbly. “I can think of no one else who is worthy.”

“Are you a fool?” Bellatrix snapped at him. “Of course you couldn’t think of anyone else. There is nobody as worthy as our Lord, there will never be anyone as worthy as our Lord!”

“Thank you, Bella,” Voldemort lifted his hand, stopping her in her tracks. She smirked at Severus. “We must return to our story now. These artifacts are known as the three Hallows. It is said that whoever unites them will be the _Master of Death._ Gellert Grindelwald recognized their power and searched long decades for them, but he was not successful. After uncovering one of them, I have finally found where he erred; you see, the wand has not lived up to its full potential. I can feel the force simmering within it, but my spells do not yet draw it out. Have you any guesses?”

They all paused to search for what the Dark Lord wanted them to say, aware that although he asked for guesses there was only one correct response. Draco wasn’t sure if he was just playing along anymore or if he had, in some pique of insanity, accepted that this children’s story was real. There was a stone that could reach the dead, a cloak that could hide someone from anything, a wand stronger than any other, and whoever gathered all three would be the Master of Death. He thought of the other stories, and wondered madly if there was really a hopping pot and cackling stump out there somewhere…

“Forgive me if I am misinterpreting, my Lord,” his mother spoke up, surprising him. “Perhaps there is already a person the wand has sworn its allegiance to?”

Draco and his father took a second to look at each other in terror, certain that she had overstepped in implying the most powerful of all wands would take any master other than Lord Voldemort. The Dark Lord only gave Narcissa a chilling smile and a nod of the head, to Draco’s shock.

“That is, I believe, exactly the case. Grindelwald did not consider whether someone had already completed this journey, and Beedle never stated that the Master of Death must have all three Hallows on them to keep their power. The wand is lost to them, but they are still in likely possession of the stone and cloak, and the unimaginable powers that come along with their title. I will, naturally, be taking them for myself.”

“Have you found the Master of Death, my Lord?” Rodolphus asked, fascinated as they all were — the Dark Lord knew how to tell a story. Bellatrix glared at her husband, seemingly just for talking. She liked to be the only one that Voldemort gave any answers to.

“I’m glad you asked,” Voldemort gave a menacing grin. “We will be finding them tonight.”

“How?” Rabastan breathed.

“In my younger years, I spent some time in Albania and delved into some of the darkest magics. The wizards and witches there spoke of a long-lost tome that held the secrets of a world out of our reach. They called it, loosely translated, the _Parallax_. The one who laid eyes on it was said to never see anything the same way again — forever elevated in their perception of our physical reality. There will never be a challenge too great for me, and so I found the Parallax by the year’s end. I have held onto it for decades, and tonight, we will be performing a ritual within that is capable of summoning any person and binding them to my will.”

There was a pregnant silence as everyone took this in, and the implications it spelled out for the war. If Voldemort was on the right track, Draco thought with a heavy heart, the Wizarding World as he knew it was lost forever. Muggle-borns would have no place, anyone who spoke against the Dark Lord would meet an immediate end, and Potter… Potter would die painfully. They’d make an example out of him.

For all that he fought with Potter in school, Draco didn’t want the boy dead. He’d actually been letting himself have some small hope that this _Chosen One_ drivel was right, that Potter would be the one to end the Dark Lord’s reign. He didn’t know where that would leave him and his parents, but their happy life as a family had already been thrown out of the window without ceremony. If this _Master of Death_ and Voldemort used their powers together, everything else Draco cared about would go out with it. For a brief second, he cursed Beedle the Bard.

“Can we use this ritual on anyone, after this?” Bellatrix looked feverish at the thought. “I could give my blood traitor of a sister a piece of my mind… and break hers.”

“No, Bella,” Voldemort bit out, visibly irritated with her this time. Bellatrix sunk back in her seat at once, shamefully. “I have been saving it for the perfect moment. This ritual may only be used once by a person. Any further interference, and their soul would be lost to the Parallax.”

“How can we be of assistance, my Lord?” Severus asked, blank-faced as always.

“The summoning ritual calls for seven casters and one person — myself — to have their will binded onto the visitor,” Voldemort said, flicking his wand and bringing several worn pages into existence. They dispersed, one page going to every person at the table. “You, my _faithful_ followers, will be doing the heavy lifting…” Lucius winced at the emphasis, a clear dig to him.

They looked at the pages in front of them. Draco could see that his and everyone else’s had some phrases on it — Latin, he was fairly certain — and an image of a wand movement. There was a number at the top of each page: an order, he surmised. As they studied their parts, the Dark Lord ignored his page in favor of raising his wand and bringing forth various items for the ritual.

There were different ingredients floating loosely in the air that he recognized from Potions class — fairy wings, a Fanged Geranium plant, fire seeds and moonseeds. Next to them was a container of what looked like salt and a jar of Honeywater. Candles danced around above all of the items.

“No time like the present, as they say,” Voldemort said smoothly, exiting his chair and heading to an empty area of the drawing room, in front of the long staircase. Without needing to be prompted, the others grabbed their instructions and followed, watching as he prepared the place.

Draco had heard horror stories of rituals gone wrong, and if this one was so dark… he looked nervously at his parents and Severus. They appeared to have their reservations as well, exchanging glances while Bellatrix, Rodolphus and Rabastan only waited in anticipation. Severus spoke up for them. “My Lord, I trust your judgment implicitly. Is this ritual… perfectly safe?”

“Yes,” Voldemort said simply. He poured the salt out and spelled it into a perfect circle on the ground, just big enough for one person to fit in. Chopping up the Fanged Geranium into pieces with motions of his wand, he continued. “As the one to be binded to the subject, I am the person who would be at risk here. However, I am much too strong to be overpowered. So long as you all take great care to follow your part word by word, breath by breath, my willpower will exercise dominion on the Master of Death. If you _do_ make a mistake… I will escape on time, but I don’t trust that you’ll do the same.”

Even more wary, Draco gulped and squeezed his mother’s hand where it had been gripping his arm. She let go and gave Draco a long look — he understood it as the warning that it was. He had to be careful. Nearby, Snape was threatening Rabastan and Rodolphus while Bellatrix rolled her eyes.

Voldemort lit a fire at the center of the circle and threw the large batch of moonseeds inside, turning the flames a strange pearlescent pink. One by one, he levitated the pieces of the Fanged Geranium into them. The fairy wings were then held over the fire and crushed into a fine powder. Finally, Voldemort put the candles around the circle of salt and lit them. He extinguished all other light sources in the drawing room, but with a squint, Draco was still able to read his part of the ritual well enough.

“The number on each of your pages corresponds to your place in the casting,” Voldemort said calmly. “Do not break the spell once it has begun, for your own sakes. Lucius, you are first. When you are ready…”

“Yes, my Lord,” Lucius nodded, steeling himself. He started the incantation and as he went on, Draco thought that his father looked slightly revitalized. Still a shell of his former self, but there was an energy about him that Draco supposed came with starting a powerful ritual like this one.

As his father neared his part’s conclusion, Draco spared a thought to the world he had been living in some thirty minutes prior, where there was no mysterious Master of Death or arcane ritual that might kill him. It had gone south so quickly… Lucius nudged Draco with his cane before he could ponder any further. He took a deep breath and picked up where the spell left off.

His mother was next, then Severus, then Rabastan, Rodolphus, and finally, Bellatrix. While she poured her heart and soul into her part of the ritual, Draco could swear the faintest taste of butterbeer filled his mouth. He could smell it, if he tried… Where was that coming from? Finally, she finished and Voldemort threw the fire seeds into the flames. For a moment they roared, still that odd pearlescent hue.

The room grew strangely colder as the fire burned and Draco had the irrational thought that the circle was sucking some of the warmth out. He started to shiver, from fear or from the chill, he wasn’t sure. As they all looked around — for what, he didn’t think anyone knew — he noticed Rabastan had his hands in his robe pockets and his mother was rubbing her shoulders. There was nothing in the circle nor outside of it… Nothing but this unexplainable cold…

Then the fire stopped without warning, and a wind that came from nowhere blew at the candles. They were plunged into pitch black darkness. Draco felt his heart skip a beat and tried to grab for his mother’s hand like a child while nobody was watching, but where she had been a moment earlier, he couldn’t feel a thing.

He didn’t hear anything, either… in the middle of the longest, most drawn out silence of his life, Draco was deathly afraid to break it. Afraid of alerting anyone… anything… to his presence. He held his breath and tried to stop his teeth from audibly chattering, still freezing. The cold was the only thing saving him from a total loss of his senses.

The quiet seemed like it would never end — until up high above him, where the banisters were and nobody should have been, Draco could have sworn he heard something _scampering_.

Bellatrix was the one to break at that. “My Lord? My Lord, what was that? Where are you?”

There was no answer. She sounded far away, too, but Draco wondered if it was his mind playing tricks on him. Unsure just what was going on but very much afraid, he wished the Dark Lord had never found the Parallax. Or read Beedle the Bard, either.

“Lumos!” Bellatrix cast — her wand lit up for just a second, and Draco was able to make out everyone’s forms, still standing around the circle — but no, no, no, _something was in the middle of it_ — he backed away in a rush, and then Bellatrix screamed at the top of her lungs — scared out of his mind and disoriented at the loss of her wandlight, Draco toppled backwards onto the floor.

“MASTER! CISSY! I SAW IT, I SAW IT LOOK INTO MY EYES, MASTER, MY LORD —”

“Silence,” Voldemort said and Bellatrix quieted down immediately, but her pants of terror were still audible. Draco suspected the Dark Lord had cast a partial _Sonorus_ to get through to her. He struggled to get back onto his feet and contemplated running away, because _what was that thing,_ but then — “Lumos.”

For all that he said his wand refused to work to its full ability, the Dark Lord’s spell went miles above Bellatrix’s. Rather than light up his wandtip, he sent bright orbs darting all around the room, fully illuminating the place once again. Draco put a hand over his eyes, momentarily blinded by the sudden brightness.

His vision adjusted, along with everyone else’s. Quiet once again, they stared at the figure inside of the salt and candles. Crumpled on the floor in a black robe with the hood drawn over its head, Draco didn’t know what to think. And for some reason, he could still taste butterbeer…

“MASTER, IT WAS HERE!” Bellatrix screeched, visibly startling all but the Dark Lord himself. Draco must have jumped about a foot in the air, he was so rattled. He swiveled his head, looking back and forth between the _person that they had summoned_ and his aunt, screaming like a loon. She had no idea about their visitor, it seemed, pointing instead to the staircase that Draco had heard the scampering from. “THE GRIM! IT WAS HERE!”

“Bellatrix, control yourself before I am compelled to cast the Cruciatus,” Voldemort said slowly, voice full of promise. The orbs had been slowly returning warmth to the room, but Draco shivered regardless from the threat in Voldemort’s tone.

“My Lord?” Bellatrix turned around finally, gasping at the sight of the robed figure. “My Lord… my Lord, you have succeeded… forgive me…”

She was right — this must be the Master of Death. Draco backed away slightly, more carefully this time. All he could think was that he didn’t want to see what was under that hood… Draco’s mind flitted between various demonic expressions, imagination running wild.

Voldemort had no such hesitations. He grabbed the jar of Honeywater that Draco had forgotten about, took the lid off, and threw it into the circle. _On the Master of Death._

As the others froze, Voldemort only calmly watched as the figure stirred. It let out a weak groan, and Draco started to feel light-headed with trepidation. The circle might not hold it… it might beat the Dark Lord’s will, he thought wildly, remembering the time Potter proved himself resistant to the Imperius…

“Good,” Voldemort said evenly as the figure moved itself into a sitting position, hood still drawn over its face so that nobody was able to get a clear glimpse. “You are awake. I presume that you are the Master of Death… my name is Lord Voldemort and I have brought you here to help me bring justice and order to the Wizarding World.”

There was no reply… ever so slowly, the figure tilted its head, but remained silent. “It is unfortunate that we have to meet this way,” Voldemort tried again. “I have used a ritual to summon you. Through this, you are bound to my will. With our combined powers, I will be a great ruler and you will see your work pay off.”

The figure started to shake very slightly. Its shoulders trembled and it brought a hand to its mouth. Draco wasn’t sure if it was crying or laughing… and he didn’t think anyone else could decide either.

“For so long as you prove useful, you will be treated well,” Voldemort leveled at it. “You will stay at this manor and be privy to my strategizing. Many would envy you.”

There was a very long pause as the figure continued to shake, and then finally — a huff of breath. A snort, one might call it. It _chortled._ This thing was laughing the whole time, Draco realized, jaw dropping.

Voldemort seemed to come to the same conclusion as he scowled. “This is no laughing matter. You must do what I say. Face me, Master of Death.”

No longer laughing, it slowly stood up. It didn’t strike the most impressive figure, a good foot shorter than the Dark Lord and lithe in build. Still, Draco dug his nails into his palm in fear as he waited to see what was under that hood…

The hands lifted and pushed the hood down, inch by inch.

The first thing Draco noticed was the scar. Next, the eyes. They were that _one shade of green_ , and looking _right at him._

“That’s Harry Potter,” he blurted out, all decorum gone.

“Hello, Draco,” the Potter replica smiled kindly at him. “How’s your summer been?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Draco's POV ends with this - he just helped me get things started. 
> 
> yes, another WIP. this semester has been kicking my ass but as soon as that's done, more updates... 
> 
> inspired by wynnebat's Hell is Other People series.


	2. Hermione Granger's Interdimensional Travel Hypothesis

Harry Potter had been through many rude awakenings in his lifetime. His uncle, rapping on the cupboard door for him to get up and cook breakfast already; the pain of his arm mending itself together forcing him back into consciousness in the Hospital Wing; his best friend Hermione, telling him it was his turn to put on the piece of the Dark Lord’s soul they were working to kill.

So many rude awakenings, unique in their awfulness… but he’d never had the singularly unpleasant experience of being shocked awake by the Dark Lord Voldemort dousing him with Honeywater.

Five hundred and one different alarm bells rang in Harry’s head in that second, Auror instincts telling him to cast first and ask questions later. Ignoring them for the time being, he sat up and gathered his bearings. Just from a cursory inspection of his surroundings, careful to keep his hood up and grateful as ever for its concealing charms, he was able to determine he was in Malfoy Manor.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, he was surrounded by a disturbingly alive Voldemort, an odd amalgamation of Death Eaters, and Narcissa Malfoy. Also, he was in the middle of a circle of salt, candles surrounding him, and felt strangely confined within the circle — like if he tried to move, he wouldn’t be able to. The ground that he sat on smelled like smoke and Harry wished that he could melt into it when he realized his wand wasn’t on him.

He decided that this was one of the worst predicaments he’d ever found himself in.

Assigning blame seemed like the best way to make sense out of this situation. Another person in his position may have blamed the Dark Lord for everything wrong in the present moment, but Harry was unfortunate enough to know better…

Death had done this.

… Now more than ever, Harry regretted the choices that led him to where he was. Ever since the Battle of Hogwarts, he had only ever tried to mind his business, no more Chosen One saving-the-world antics. He just wanted to be a good service to the Auror force, a loyal friend, and a devoted godparent.

Then one fateful night, he lost sight of his priorities and went on a drunken escapade with Luna and Xenophilius Lovegood.

In the moment, he’d only wanted to make Luna happy. Harry felt that he owed her as much for the horrible nights she’d stayed as a captive in this Manor’s dungeons. If that meant burying the hatchet with her father who had tried to turn them in to the Death Eaters and getting sloshed on Firewhiskey… well, so be it, he thought. He may have drank a little too much in an effort to brace himself for chatter about Blibbering Humdingers and Nargles, but that wasn’t where the conversation went.

Xenophilius was always so enthusiastic about the Hallows and Harry thought to humor him. He was experiencing just the right amount of guilt for all the misery everyone had suffered for him, mixed with just the right level of inebriation, to make a _really stupid decision._ They went into the Forbidden Forest and dug up the resurrection stone, some kind of intuition screaming out to him that it was in _this exact spot, here._ From there, it was easy. The cloak was always on him, and he’d kept the Elder Wand locked up safely in Grimmauld Place.

Before Harry knew it, he had all three Hallows on him. It was very anticlimactic, at first. Then Luna complimented him very politely on his new tattoo and he realized he’d made a mistake.

On the palm of Harry’s left hand he found the symbol of the Hallows, the very one that Luna’s father carried on a chain around his neck and Grindelwald had touted everywhere. Xenophilius looked like a man reborn, vindicated for the years he’d spent insisting on their existence. Harry was only confused and for the next several weeks, found himself zoning out and staring at his palm on a regular basis, the black inscription telling him nothing but stubbornly staying put on his hand.

Whatever he tried, it wouldn’t go away. He cast magical tattoo removal charms on himself and, failing that, tried the Muggles’ laser technique. Scrubbed his skin raw every time he washed his hands, and yet the symbol still stuck out black as night and proud on his palm.

After he accepted that he’d been permanently marked by some powerful force for the second time in his life, he tried to relinquish the title for good. Both saying out loud and writing down, _I’m not interested in being the Master of Death, thank you,_ didn’t seem to do the trick, no matter how many times he gave it a go. He even tried to hold a conversation with Death, with no small amount of fear about just what it was or would manifest as, but his pleas seemed to fall on deaf ears. The Master of Death, and he couldn’t even summon the thing…

Harry skived the Hallows off to other people; the cloak to Neville Longbottom, the Elder Wand to Hermione Granger, and the resurrection stone to his cousin Dudley Dursley, the only person he knew who had suffered no losses to tempt him if he did figure out what the artifact functioned as. He had hoped beyond hope that it would work, the Master of Death no more with his three Hallows divided.

Upon waking up and seeing the Hallows laid out on his nightstand the next day, Harry felt strongly disappointed and mildly terrified. There were no terms and conditions made available to him for the role he’d been saddled with, no exit clause that he knew of. He read _The Tales of Beedle the Bard_ again and again, Ron and Hermione trying their best to help him in his search for answers, but it was all in vain.

For a year, nothing more happened. Harry continued to try everything short of sawing his hand off to erase the symbol and Hermione continued to study everything that was available (which is to say, very little) about the Hallows, the Master of Death title and the personification of Death. They felt like they were waiting for the other shoe to drop… and it did, rather unceremoniously.

The best way Harry found to describe the grim state of affairs was that Death — or some higher power or even the universe itself, he wasn’t that sure, but he’d settle on that name — gave him _tasks._ When something Death-adjacent needed to get done, Harry found himself there, with a sense of purpose in his head and the symbol on his palm burning.

It started out small. He came to in a rundown Muggle house with a corpse in it, an old woman with no friends or family to speak of, and somewhere past the horror of waking up in the same room as a dead body, he _knew_ why he was there. If the cadaver was not found and buried, the woman’s soul wouldn’t rest; she would always be lonely, abandoned. He felt great pity for the last few days she must have lived all by herself and put in an anonymous tip to the police. After she was buried, he left flowers on the headstone.

Following that ordeal, Harry had to deal with the fact that even though he was the Master of Death, the blasted thing seemed to be in charge of _him,_ and he didn’t know how to stop it.

Slowly but surely, it escalated. After he exorcised Professor Binns from the Hogwarts premises, Harry realized just how out of control his life had become. Only, it was clearly even _worse than he thought_ if he was in Malfoy Manor with people who should mostly be dead right at that moment.

There was no sense of purpose in his head this time — no gut feeling about what he had to do. Only a burning symbol on his left palm and his deceased archenemy talking to him.

“Good,” Voldemort said, shattering the small hope Harry had let himself foster that maybe this wasn’t really the Dark Lord with just one word. The man’s voice was so specially awful, full of cold menace that sent shivers up Harry’s spine; there was no mistaking it. “You are awake. I presume that you are the Master of Death… my name is Lord Voldemort and I have brought you here to help me bring justice and order to the Wizarding World.”

Harry’s mind short-circuited for a second as he tried to rationalize Voldemort’s words. So, he was brought here not by Death, but intentionally by the Dark Lord… to serve his evil, megalomaniacal purposes… and nobody there seemed to realize that Master of Death or not, _he was Harry Potter._ They only stared at him like he was some strange, horrifying specimen.

Voldemort looked like he was expecting a reply. Harry just tilted his head, sure that if he opened his mouth to speak or his hood came down, fresh hell would break loose.

“It is unfortunate that we have to meet this way,” Voldemort continued. It’s unfortunate we have to meet at all, Harry chose not to say out loud. “I have used a ritual to summon you. Through this, you are bound to my will. With our combined powers, I will be a great ruler and you will see your work pay off.”

There was a _lot_ to unpack there, and Harry didn’t know where to start. It was all just bizarre. Voldemort thought he had mysterious, deathly powers that he could control and use to rule over Magical Britain, perhaps the entire world, and had no clue that he was the bloody Boy-Who-Lived-Twice.

On the subject, _HOW WAS VOLDEMORT EVEN ALIVE?_

Not just alive, no… he seemed to be in the height of his reign. The group of people there, sans Snape, all lived in Malfoy Manor after Harry’s sixth year, when the Death Eaters had control over the Ministry. He theorized that he was somehow a decade in the past. That odd Master-of-Death-intuition agreed with him, but beyond that, Harry was clueless.

There were two possibilities he could think of that would explain the fact he was literally in 1997… either he’d traveled back in time, or he’d gotten thrown in some parallel universe that Hermione had talked about during one of her study bursts, briefly confident that the key to summoning Death was in the secrets of interdimensional travel — until like everything else, it had fallen through.

If it was time travel, everyone was screwed. His hood would come down and Voldemort would torture him until he revealed the truth about the future, then it would all be undone and the universe would collapse in on itself, Harry thought morbidly. But it didn’t quite make sense…

This wasn’t the past he knew, not exactly. When had Voldemort ever had the opportunity to summon the Master of Death? He hadn’t even known about the Hallows, Harry didn’t think he’d heard a _word_ of the children’s tale they came from… and the Elder Wand that was grasped in his bone-white hand was there too early, as Harry vividly remembered the Dark Lord had grabbed it just before the final battle.

So, there was a very real chance Harry was in _another dimension._ A _parallel_ , an _alternate universe._ A different world. Summoned across space and time and what-have-you by another version of the Dark Lord he thought he’d finally gotten rid of.

Harry cracked, then. He was so overcome with the strangeness of it all, the line from terrifying to hilarious so nonexistent in this situation… he might be tortured for his nerve to step foot in the Manor, but it would only be thanks to the Dark Lord _dragging him there himself,_ because he thought Harry would help him win the war.

He put a hand over his mouth to stop himself from laughing raucously, at a loss for what else to do.

“For so long as you prove useful, you will be treated well,” Voldemort tried again. “You will stay at this manor and be privy to my strategizing. Many would envy you.”

Harry envisioned himself working as the right hand to Voldemort, his consult and _housemate,_ and lost his grip. He snickered out loud, nearly in tears from the hilarity of it all.

“This is no laughing matter,” Voldemort snapped and oh, Harry _disagreed._ “You must do what I say. Face me, Master of Death.”

Well, that was new. A force not unlike the Imperius, but disturbingly more powerful, willed him to obey Voldemort’s command. He couldn’t break it, couldn’t negotiate with his body as it started to move against his wishes.

Harry stopped laughing. It wasn’t funny anymore.

Standing up, he just had a moment to brace himself before he was compelled to bring his hood down and reveal his face. If he was really at the mercy of Voldemort’s whims, Harry didn’t know what he would do…

His hands slowly brought the hood down even as he put all his force into resisting it. He was powerless, his will literally bound to the Dark Lord… what kind of twisted ritual had he done…?

Gasps surrounded him, but Harry would only meet the stare of the one trustworthy person in this group. He owed plenty to Severus Snape, but the man was so secretive and frustrating Harry doubted he had any hope of working with him through this situation. Narcissa Malfoy had saved his life, too, but she would have killed him just as easily if it meant ensuring the safety of her son, Draco… the boy who represented a lifeline to Harry right now.

“That’s Harry Potter,” Draco said dumbly, eyes darting back and forth from meeting Harry’s to staring at his scar. Harry felt that there was going to be a learning curve here, but Draco still represented his best chance at an ally.

“Hello, Draco,” he smiled, forcing his inner fear down under the surface to put up a brave front. “How’s your summer been?”

As the boy’s mouth fell open, utterly lost for words, the others found it within them to take action. Lucius, Narcissa, Bellatrix, Rodolphus, Rabastan and Severus… they all raised their wands at him. Where the others were confused, Severus looked genuinely afraid, wand hand trembling. Not for his own wellbeing, Harry understood; he was worried for Harry’s safety.

“Relax,” Voldemort said unexpectedly, raising his hand only to motion the others’ wands down.

Harry turned to look him in the eyes and regretted it quite immediately. The sight of them, crimson-red and _piercing,_ raised goosebumps all over Harry’s body. The Dark Lord’s attention was focused so heavily on him that he found it hard to breathe. Voldemort’s skin creased at the brow bone; Harry realized that if he had eyebrows, they would have been furrowed at that moment.

It only took seconds for Harry to feel stripped down and debased by Voldemort’s stare. The Dark Lord outright inspected him, from every inch of his face (with special attention to the scar he was responsible for) to the rest of Harry, looking for something. He settled on his left hand.

Harry could have sworn his palm burned a little more the instant Voldemort laid eyes on it. The whole room seemed to heat up, in fact, as he became hyper-aware of the distance between himself and the Dark Lord. They had never before stood so close to each other without a Killing Curse at the tip of one of their tongues.

“Master of Death… and a shape-shifter,” Voldemort sneered once the others had followed his instructions and put their wands down, with the exception of Draco who was still gaping and had never had the presence of mind to arm himself in the first place. “Let this be your first and last warning… I do not take kindly to _taunts.”_

Shape-shifter. Right. So, Voldemort refused to believe that he was Harry Potter and rationalized a different explanation out of what he saw. Merlin, did Harry wish he could do the same.

He could go along with it, let Voldemort think this wasn’t his actual form, but the man had said it was his only warning — likely a signal that copious amounts of torture were to follow. He couldn’t exactly fake being a Metamorphagus so the truth was going to come out one way or another, Harry realized.

“With all due respect,” Harry started, lying straight out of his ass because he could not hold _any less_ respect for this man… “You’ve come to the wrong conclusion. I understand how you got there, mind, makes perfect sense… I, er, wish it _was_ true…”

“The wrong conclusion?” Voldemort repeated sardonically, and Harry didn’t miss the way his wand twitched in his hand. He wondered absentmindedly if the Elder Wand would even work against him now — if he could snap his fingers and summon it to his side…

Harry took a deep breath and told himself to stop losing his nerve. Voldemort terrified him like nothing else, but he was stuck talking to him for the time being. “Yes. I am the Master of Death — possessor of all three Hallows, see —” Harry raised his marked palm up to them briefly, “— but I am also Harry Potter. Just not the one you know.”

“Harry Potter is _not the Master of Death,”_ Voldemort snapped, sibilant in his rage. He must have thought he was being played for a fool. “Potter is an arrogant schoolboy who spends more time playing Quidditch than he does having a _brain_ , and has only survived this long out of _sheer, dumb luck._ I command you to tell me the truth.”

Harry felt slightly offended at the man’s words but didn’t linger on it. The compulsion to obey came and he rode it out this time, understanding that there was likely very little point to resisting. He thought bitterly that Voldemort had finally found a way to cast the Imperius on him.

“I _am_ telling you the truth. My name is Harry James Potter and I’m the Chosen One, the Boy-Who-Lived-Twice, and all that fodder. I’ve also been the Master of Death for seven years now. I think you pulled me from another universe into this one, a sort of parallel one where everything is a decade behind and you found out about the Hallows…and I really would love nothing more than to save us both from this unpleasant coincidence and _go back home.”_

Harry closed his eyes and tried to take deep breaths. He’d gotten worked up during that explanation and knew the last thing he wanted to do was test out the limits of the Dark Lord’s patience, if it wasn’t already too late. For a few seconds, there was silence around him — he could only hear his own heartbeat.

He chanced a look and felt a jolt in his stomach when he saw that the Dark Lord was utterly incensed. The situation seemed to have gotten away from him, and Harry could tell he didn’t like that one bit… Voldemort stared at him in a mixture of anger, disgust, and fascination, wand raised his way. Harry was sure the man knew there was a good chance any spell wouldn’t work, but felt afraid nonetheless. He backed away as far as he could in the weird circle of salt he was in, which was not very far at all.

“So you mean to tell me, _Potter,_ not only that parallel universes exist, I pulled you from one, and you united the three Hallows seven years ago,” Voldemort trailed on slowly, in a quiet kind of rage. It was building up, Harry thought… and to what, he didn’t know… “But that our universe is a decade behind yours. Meaning, at this rate of progression, _Harry Potter will become the Master of Death.”_

“Maybe?” Harry chanced, willing Voldemort to understand that he didn’t have all (or any) of the answers here. The message didn’t seem to sink in — Voldemort looked more homicidal by the second. The others in the room backed away from them both. “Like I said, you didn’t know about the Hallows in my universe, so that might throw a wrench into things. I’m also not sure how it works across universes, how many Masters there can even _be…”_

“Explain this to me,” Voldemort ordered, sending that frustrating compulsion back to Harry. “Just what happened in between today, the summer of 1997, and the day you became the Master of Death? How did this… _sequence of events_ unfold?”

Ah. There it was… Voldemort was going to spill over the precipice at this, and Harry had no way of stopping it. He steeled himself the best that he could before Voldemort’s will forced the words out of him. There had to be some way to get past this, to circumvent the order… if Voldemort wanted an explanation, then perhaps Harry could get away with explaining _very little._

“I found the stone and the cloak, both entirely on accident, and then during what should’ve been my seventh year, we dueled. Your curse rebounded on your own self, and you died. I united the Hallows shortly after.”

One of the Malfoy Manor’s chandeliers fell and Narcissa shrieked. Severus had the presence of mind to shield them off from the shrapnel, but kept his wary eyes on the Dark Lord even while he cast. The man was seething, eyes storming after Harry’s revelation.

“The Boy-Who-Lived-Twice, you called yourself…” Voldemort murmured, looking very much like he was contemplating giving it a third try. Harry tried his hardest not to cower as the Dark Lord advanced further, on the edge of the salt…

Voldemort spread his hands out, clenched them into fists, and just as Harry flinched in fear, the chandelier Vanished. Harry blinked as Voldemort’s tumultuous anger disappeared, a smirk in its wake. This was, somehow, more terrifying.

“Fate has smiled down upon me, Harry Potter,” Voldemort’s smirk grew into a bloodthirsty grin, and Harry felt just a little bit sick at the sight. “I have full control over the Master of Death, his powers and his _mind.”_

Harry reeled as he tried to understand just why Voldemort was so satisfied all of a sudden. Whatever powers Harry had as the Master of Death, he had hardly any idea how to use them. But _his mind,_ the man had said… Harry had very little knowledge in his head that he imagined a Dark Lord could glean anything valuable from. Except, no… Voldemort had said it himself, this universe was meant to unfold the same exact way that his own did…

“The past you know so intimately is my future,” Voldemort said with twisted delight, confirming Harry’s theory. “I am going to cross destiny and live forever, Harry, and after I kill your counterpart, you alone will bear witness to my glory.”

Bloody hell, _no_. He was right. Harry knew where the Dark Lord had overstepped, knew the mistakes he had made and with his knowledge, Voldemort could make sure he took out the only person who stood a chance against him — an innocent, sixteen-year-old boy who didn’t know he harbored a piece of the Dark Lord’s soul within him. And who knew what would happen to him if Voldemort _did_ find out, an end worse than death…

Harry had no idea what to do, but he felt like he stood on the edge of something. Something that was all at once great and dangerous, a divergence from fate’s set course, into the cold unknown.

His fight or flight instinct kicked in, then. There was no way to fight… he wasn’t even armed. He could try and summon the Elder Wand from Voldemort’s grip, but against seven others, he wouldn’t make it out… the cloak wouldn’t help him here, either, because he was _trapped in this bloody circle._

While he was glancing around in abject terror, Severus Snape locked eyes with him for a brief moment. Just long enough for the man to look pointedly down to the salt. The grains had been separated the slightest bit, surrounding the thinnest line of empty floor.

Whatever hold that circle had on Harry, he felt it disappear. Without a second thought, he ran.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks so much for your feedback after the first chapter and I hope you like the direction I've taken this in. I thrive off comments, so please do leave one if you're so inclined! until next time...


	3. Dog Ex Machina

Adrenaline coursed through Harry as he turned away from Voldemort and broke out into a sprint. He knocked a candle over in his urgency and nearly slipped on the salt, but stayed right-side up by some stroke of luck. He had no battle plan, no wand, and no clue how to get around Malfoy Manor. His goal was just to get away, as fast as he could. The staircase to the second floor was directly in front of him and the Dark Lord was directly behind him.

Harry spared a moment only to think: it seemed that Severus Snape was destined to save his skin in every universe.

Bellatrix, the first to react, let out a howl of rage that rang in his ears almost right after he’d made a break for it. Spellfire began to graze him when he was but a meter away from the circle, red Stunners mixing with Cruciatus curses to make for a fun guessing game of just which end he’d meet. Dudley had terrorized him so often with constant games of Harry-Hunting when they were children that Harry now felt those same evasion instincts return. He jumped and dodged like it was an Olympic sport, twisting this way and that to avoid the Death Eaters’ curses.

He was possessed with a single-minded determination to escape and most alarmingly, a preternatural awareness of their spells — he could almost _sense_ the magic as it approached him. Felt disturbances in the atmosphere to his left or to his right, and moved accordingly.

He didn’t know if this ability was a side effect of the ritual Voldemort had done or something else he had Death to thank for, but decided to be grateful for the time being and ask questions later.Without it, he would doubtlessly have fallen to the eight wizards on his neck; Auror training had not prepared him for this.

Lord Voldemort’s reaction was delayed — likely shocked that he had broken free, though Harry couldn’t imagine why, considering his track record. “You will stop _now,_ Harry Potter,” he dictated, voice booming throughout the hall. For just a beat, the world itself seemed to hang in the balance. The spellfire ceased as everyone held their breaths, and Harry’s body tensed up in anticipation. He waited for that compulsion to take effect —

_But he kept going._ The strange power that Voldemort had held over him was broken; Harry defied him with impunity, finding it in himself to run even faster instead, up the staircase that had too many steps for his liking. Now that he was outside of the circle, his free will had returned, he realized gloriously. He knew the exact moment that Voldemort came to the same conclusion, for the man’s scream rang like a cacophony in his ears and glass shattered from somewhere above them.

He didn’t dare look back as panic broke out behind him, zigzagging in the most unpredictable pattern he could muster so that even he didn’t know where he was going to throw his body next. If he ever saw Oliver Wood again, he would have to thank him: Harry had settled into a twisted version of a Quidditch routine the captain had taught him, one which always helped him avoid the Beaters.

This was madness, it was an impossible and hopeless situation, but a sick thrill erupted inside of Harry regardless. It had been so long since he’d felt excitement of this magnitude, had so much at stake and really come _this close_ to losing it all. But the battle wasn’t over yet.

Miraculously, Harry reached the top of the staircase. The wall itself was grazed by spellfire and at least ten different priceless heirlooms had been caught in the crossfire, poor Narcissa. He went to turn the corner, heart racing, but before he could make it —

“AVADA KEDAVRA!” Bellatrix screeched. A jolt of fear ran through Harry; up until that point, his pursuers had been aiming only to incapacitate or maim. He ducked and looked back dumbly, but his dodging didn’t matter for before the spell could leave Bellatrix’s wand, a great black dog toppled her over with a ferocious growl.

Thrown off course, the Killing Curse grazed Lord Voldemort’s head. Everyone but the dog, which had come from nowhere, stared at the Dark Lord in alarm, their breath taken away. Voldemort looked rather like he’d forgotten _how_ to breathe.

Harry had the distinct feeling that nothing else could have done it; nothing but that near-death experience could have frozen the Dark Lord and everyone else in their tracks, and saved Harry the time he had lost staring at the dog. He nearly forgot himself and the precariousness of his situation, so caught up in confusion and hope.

“IT’S THE GRIM, IT CAME BACK FOR ME!” Bellatrix yowled, clearly attempting to blast it off of her but struggling to shield her face from its maw at the same time. The others were paralyzed, mainly in indecision (likely feigned in Severus’ case); Voldemort was in residual shock, Harry was fairly certain, somehow even paler than normal; and Harry himself was still seriously wondering what Death was playing at, whether this was really the Grim or something more…

The dog bit Bellatrix’s right hand and she screamed, dropping her wand. “MASTER, HELP ME!”

This roused Voldemort back into action. He hissed a Killing Curse at the dog but it shot up just in time, leaving Bellatrix behind on the floor and taking her wand with it. Harry finally broke out of his trance and started to run once more, rounding the corner with the dog following closely. He found himself in a hallway with an insane amount of doors and passages, Death Eaters and the Dark Lord merely a heartbeat away.

The dog sprinted to turn another corner before Harry could come to a decision. He followed it cluelessly. Before Harry knew it, he was in a maze of hallways. The dog seemed to know its way around better than Harry — or just thought better under pressure, so stressed Harry was by the fact the Dark Lord was right on their tail. He let it choose where they went and just focused on maintaining his speed.

They followed an unpredictable path, taking a left here and three rights there. The sound of Bellatrix’s sobbing grew quieter until finally, they heard nothing at all. By some miracle, Voldemort and his Death Eaters had lost them, but Harry knew it was only a short matter of time until he was caught once again.

His list of priorities was rather skewed right now — rather than continue to run or form any sort of plan, Harry stopped in his tracks. The dog halted too, turning around and tilting its head. Harry just looked at it closely. The dog watched him in turn, with its wide, grey eyes.

Realizing this was not at all the time, and not really caring, Harry squatted until he got to the dog’s level. He moved his face up close to the dog’s, and asked it in all seriousness: “Are you my godfather?”

The dog looked at Harry almost pensively. It might have all been in Harry’s imagination, but there seemed to be an awareness behind its eyes that most normal dogs lacked. He just wasn’t sure if it was Animagus-level awareness, and the dog didn’t seem like it was about to confess. It just continued to watch him. After another awkward moment of staring, its mouth fell open to drop Bellatrix’s wand onto the ground. The dog’s tongue lolled out stupidly.

As he picked up Bellatrix’s wand, Harry’s eyes never once left the dog’s. Finally armed, he continued to stare right back at it in a silent challenge. He felt only slightly ridiculous about what he was doing. If there was any chance…

Meanwhile, Abraxas Malfoy’s portrait looked back and forth between the both of them in bemusement. It then left its confines, unnoticed by both animal and human, so invested they were in their staring contest.

Finally, the dog straightened its head and adopted a most peculiar expression. The face it was making was… uncanny. It didn’t belong on a dog. It looked like it was trying to — no, it _was_ — winking. The dog _winked_ at him.

This raised more questions than it answered, but Harry understood they were short on time. There were two possibilities: either this was the Grim, a dog sent here by Death itself to help Harry out and save his life as needed, and it had a sense of humor… or his dead godfather Sirius Black was in his Animagus form and being coy about it. Could Death bring people back from the beyond to help Harry in one of his weird, deathly tasks? Like Inferi, but _alive?_

He would have to get to the bottom of this later, when he and the dog were both entirely free of the Dark Lord that was making his way to them right at that second. Harry didn’t know if he genuinely felt the foreboding, dark aura of the man creeping closer and closer, or if it was just the pure dread that had naturally pooled up inside of him. Either way, they needed to leave.

He straightened up and looked at the dog. “Okay, Grim or Sirius — we’re not done discussing this, but for right now… lead the way.”

The dog obeyed, trotting along more hallways until it came to another staircase. This one went a long ways down; Harry could not see the end of it. With no choice but to follow his maybe-godfather, Harry took the stairs two steps at a time.

This staircase was definitely going below the ground floor Harry had woken up in. As they got closer to the end, he spotted a very dimly lit room at the bottom and hoped nothing lay lurking in wait for them. The dog seemed to come to the same conclusion, slowing until it was on the same step as Harry. They glanced at each other, as if to say, _no, you first._

The dog whined and with a long sigh, Harry braced himself to go down further, into the dark passage. He continued to walk through the new hallway without any idea where he was really headed — were these some sort of catacombs? Was there a door out at the end, or a Portkey or fireplace to Floo out of?

Then again, there could have been a great gleaming Muggle exit sign right in front of Harry and he would have barely noticed, so dark it was. “Lumos,” he whispered and immediately regretted it.

The instant that more light lit up the area, Harry saw a person standing right in front of them and jumped. His heartbeat skyrocketed and he barely stopped himself from yelling, so jilted he was.

“Draco Malfoy!” Harry whispered in a very cross tone, seriously amazed he had not died from a heart attack right then and there. “What do you think you’re _doing?”_

The boy in question seemed even more taken aback to see them. Draco’s eyes went back and forth from Harry to the Grim in uncertainty. Harry observed with some relief that his gaze never turned to his Dark Mark, the one that could so easily summon the Dark Lord.

Draco looked all around them, even inspecting the ceiling closely, before casting a silencing charm. “My grandfather told me what way you were headed,” Draco said weakly.

“Your grandfather?” Harry wasn’t following.

Draco seemed to gain some energy back, if only so he could channel it into the token _you’re an idiot_ look he had always reserved for Harry. “He’s one of our many portraits, Potter.”

Harry’s blood ran cold. _The portraits._ He had been so stupid, to forget that Voldemort and the Death Eaters had informants right in the hallways he was running in… had any others reported on his whereabouts? He turned around wildly, half-expecting the Dark Lord to be breathing down his neck, but nothing had come down the staircase… yet.

“Potter!” Draco caught his attention again. Harry turned back, still overcome by fear. “Kidnap me.”

What?

“Kidnap me,” Draco repeated. Evidently, Harry had spoken out loud.

“You want me to _kidnap_ you,” Harry said, bewildered.

“And you want to get out of here,” Draco snapped at him. “I know how to leave these chambers without anyone noticing, so we can both help each other out. You’ll take this deal if you know what’s good for you.”

So even after Harry had been hyped up as the all-powerful, incredibly dark Master of Death, Draco Malfoy had no qualms about antagonizing him. If nothing else, he supposed it was humbling.

“Alright,” Harry said slowly. “But it’s not really a kidnapping if you’re arranging it.”

“I’ll put up a struggle,” Draco said feverishly, conjuring a knife. Harry was powerless to stop him in the second it took for Draco to cut into his palm, leaving an open wound in his wake.

“What the bloody hell…” Harry had taken a step back in alarm, but now watched as Draco held his palm over the ground and let the blood drip. He sliced off a piece of his too-expensive robes and threw it towards the staircase before Vanishing the knife. Harry wondered madly if this classified as method acting.

“Every person split up,” Draco explained with a rather unhinged gleam in his eye. Harry felt unsettled — he did not know how to deal with a Draco Malfoy that had finally made the leap over to rebellion. “Someone will be here soon enough. Follow me if you want us to live, and for Merlin’s sake, keep that dog off of me.”

“It won’t bite,” Harry said dumbly as Draco pivoted and speed walked through the hallway. He chased after him, wand still lit up. “Er, I think.”

“So reassuring,” Draco muttered sarcastically, continuing his journey down. The passageway’s walls were made of stone, and it seemed to have no end in sight. Harry nearly ran straight into Draco when the boy held a hand out and froze. “Listen to me very carefully, Potter. This is our one chance to make it out, and make it out _alive_. If you mess anything up, we are _done.”_

“Calm down,” Harry tried to placate Draco, who seemed to be in the throes of panic, perhaps just realizing what he had committed to. “We’re going to be fine. Let’s keep going, one foot in front of the other.”

Draco shook his head. “We’re here.”

“What d’you mean, we’re here?” Harry asked, utterly lost.

“I’m going to tap my wand on this piece of stone,” Draco began to speak slowly, like he was talking to a third-grader. “Then the wall will make way for a tunnel that we can take to go up above ground. Anti-Apparition spells are set up around the perimeter of the Manor and the doors are being guarded, but this will take us right to the front.”

Of _course_ the Malfoys’ home was filled with secret doors and tunnels. “Are you going to be able to Side-Along the two of us?”

Draco looked at Harry, then the dog, and finally down to his hands, which were trembling. That answered Harry’s question. “It’s okay, I can do it, but I need another wand. I don’t think Bellatrix’s is working out for me.”

“Does this look like Ollivander’s, you daft —”

“Just _listen to me,”_ Harry stressed, his leader voice coming in from his Auror missions. Draco closed his mouth. “I have a theory. See, I’m the master of the Hallows… in _my_ universe. I’m not sure what’s going on here. I think maybe you guys just don’t have a Master of Death and I got pulled in. Make sense so far?”

He nodded so Harry continued, talking it out for his own benefit just as much as Draco’s. “In my world, because I’m the Master of Death, I can summon the Hallows when I want to. I just have to say their name and have some intent, and they’ll come to me… so if I raised my hand out like this, and said _wand…”_

The two waited with bated breath, but nothing happened. “Normally, it would come to me. I think it doesn’t recognize me as its master… I don’t feel the same connection that I usually do. Instead, I want you to try it.”

_“Me?”_ Draco’s voice went up an octave there — he was clearly alarmed at the prospect. “What am _I_ doing anything for?”

_“Think,_ Draco, think back to the last time Dumbledore had the Elder Wand. His last night, on the Astronomy Tower. You found him, you confronted him before anyone else. What did you do?”

Draco winced at the reminder of that night, then stopped to think back like Harry had said. It didn’t seem to sink in — he just looked down where he had his arms crossed together, brows furrowed. Just when Harry had begun to lose faith that he’d figure it out in time, all too aware that they were spending too much time conversing and not enough time running, Draco froze and looked like he’d seen a ghost.

“No,” Draco said simply, for all that he was clearly in a state of catastrophe. His face fell and he took several steps back until he hit the wall, then put his hands on his head. He seemed like he was trying to rip his scalp off. “You’re lying. That — I disarmed him, but that wouldn’t win me allegiance to the…”

Draco couldn’t even finish the sentence. His knees buckled on him and he sank down to the dirty ground. Harry could hardly believe the level of dramatics that was happening here, but in hindsight, he should have expected this.

“It’s not true,” Draco denied once again.

“If I’m wrong, then I’m wrong,” Harry said calmly, a direct contrast to the wave of anxiety Draco was radiating. “I want you to try to summon it.”

“He’ll kill me,” Draco took his hands off of his head and finally looked at Harry, earnest horror warping his features. “You don’t understand, he’ll hunt me down and kill me…”

_“Not if we get away._ You said it yourself, they’re coming for us — we don’t have time. Just say the words and picture the wand, that’s all you have to do. If it works, I can get us out of here as soon as we reach the top.”

Harry chose not to voice the small worry he was harboring that he would in fact not be able to Apparate anywhere. Apparition was limited to the places a wizard had _been,_ and he’d never really been anywhere in this universe… but Draco was in enough panic right now.

“What — what do I do?” Draco looked utterly lost, and completely afraid.

Harry felt bad for plunging the boy into an existential crisis here, but felt like he was reaching his wit’s end. “I just told you, picture the wand, lift your hand out and say it. And have some intent behind your words.”

Draco looked like he’d rather do anything else in the world, but steeled himself anyway. He took a deep breath, raised his hand and said daringly, “Elder Wand.”

There was a moment of silence that seemed to last forever and pass by too quickly all at once. A sudden _whoosh_ rang through the air and scared them both. The Deathstick soared from the staircase to Draco’s waiting hand like that was where it belonged. Harry felt vindication — Draco _was_ the true master of the wand, and Voldemort would have no idea.

But, Harry realized, Voldemort would now know his wand was gone… it had reached them rather fast, hadn’t it? Draco seemed to agree as he paled, exchanging a fearful glance with Harry. “He’ll know now.”

“Not if we get away,” Harry said, but a _clang_ from the other end of the hall interrupted him and startled them both. “So, about that tunnel…”

“Right,” Draco nodded shakily. He gave the Elder Wand to Harry without hesitation. Harry missed the odd feeling of kinship that the wand normally sparked in him — instead, it was almost hollow. Never taking his eyes off the way they had come from, Draco raised his own wand and tapped at an area of the stone five times, three long and two short.

Harry was thrilled to see that the wall opened up… but his heart sank when he processed just how loudly the stone had separated. There was no way they hadn’t been overheard past the silencing charm. “Go, close it back up behind us, hurry —”

As Harry rushed Draco, the air behind them grew palpably thicker and the feeling of dread in Harry’s stomach intensified. Surely they were not about to get caught, so close to freedom — then just as they got inside the tunnel, the whole area was plunged into darkness. Harry’s Lumos was the only source of light, but it would tell Voldemort exactly where he was — and most mysteriously, the dog had disappeared…

Draco tried the tapping pattern again, but messed up the first time and dropped his wand the second. Harry could do nothing but stand there in wait, frozen as he tried to listen for any more ominous sounds — until cutting it far too close for comfort, and much too loud again, Draco closed the tunnel back up.

Harry’s Lumos charm illuminated their pale faces as they stared at each other, paralyzed to move. If Voldemort had seen them disappear… if he knew which area of stone to knock out…

All of the air in the place felt as though it was sucked out and Harry couldn’t breathe as he heard _rustling_ on the other side of the wall. Then, that voice from all of his nightmares, crooning: _“Harry…”_

His blood ran cold. Without thinking, he clutched Draco’s arm and the other boy responded in kind. Gripping each other tightly, they listened as Voldemort passed down the hallway and spoke just two feet from them, only a stone wall in between… A wall that would be so responsive to Bombarda…

“You can’t hide from me forever, Harry… Aren’t you tired of running? Let me take care of you…”

For how kind Voldemort’s words were, the sinister tone beneath them revealed his true intentions. Harry had no doubt that he would be on the other end of a very painful torturing curse the moment he dared to reveal himself. The Lumos grew weaker as Harry’s terror rose.

“I know you’re in here… how rude of you to take my wand, steal from the one person who understands you… the _Master of Death,_ but _you_ need to be controlled, don’t you?”

Harry resented that statement and all of its implications. He would have told the Dark Lord as much if he hadn’t been preoccupied with being as quiet as possible, even in the bounds of Draco’s silencing charm. Said boy tugged at his sleeve gently. Harry turned to look, and Draco motioned his head to the upper staircase within the tunnel — _get a move on,_ his wide eyes seemed to say. Leaving Voldemort’s lures behind, Harry practically tiptoed forward, Elder Wand clutched firmly in his hand.

They moved slowly at first, then ran for their very lives, eager to get away from Voldemort’s beckons. Harry finally spotted an exit at the top, with the natural light of the outdoors radiating from around it. This light was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen for a moment and he followed it like a moth, yearning to be outside and free. As they grew closer, he grabbed Draco’s arm again.

“The moment we’re out of the Manor, I’m going to Side-Along us,” he whispered. “Brace yourself.”

Draco just nodded, which was good enough for Harry. They were both still rattled; when they reached the top of the tunnel, they just stood there for a moment. Harry realized with a pang of fear that if Draco knew about this hidden passage, so too would his parents… and anyone looking outside of the Manor windows might see them, regardless…

The wooden door above them reminded Harry vividly of the trap door he had encountered in the third floor corridor of Hogwarts, during what he now realized was a quite simpler time. They stood right below it and exchanged a glance. Both seemed to understand: it was now or never.

Harry took a deep breath and opened the door, then darted outside with Draco. They found themselves in a garden with no less than a dozen flamingoes surrounding them. Rabastan Lestrange’s call of alarm rang out, and he knew they had already been found out —

Without a second thought, Harry turned on the spot. He pictured the first place that came to mind… Somewhere he hadn’t been in a decade.

_Number Four, Privet Drive._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am ridiculously amused by this chapter title. Hope you enjoyed and thanks so much for all your feedback. 
> 
> Please leave a comment if you're so inclined!


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